Commercial Breaks

Some days, there is nothing to watch on television. Years ago, we had 7 channels and if we were on the cutting edge of technology, we had a circular wire that we attached on the back of the television set to get channel 21. Now I have 700 channels and have nothing to watch. Every few days I record a few shows to watch when I can find nothing better. Last night I was watching a recorded show. I had the capability to advance through the commercials, but I kept forgetting that I was watching a recording. Each time I realized that I could fast forward, I did and I was surprised to count how many consecutive commercials I was passing. The highest amount at one time was 11. Then, the show would come back on for three minutes, followed by another 6 commercials. When we watch live, we have become so used to the commercial breaks that we do not realize that there is more commercial content than show. Each one hour show has about 20 minutes of content, sandwiched between 40 minutes of advertising. The television shows are not the ones being programmed. The people are.